Call of duty advanced warfare
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Watch this page Not to be confused with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter or Advance Wars. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Developer(s) Sledgehammer Games Additional work: High Moon Studios Raven Softwarea Publisher(s) WW Activision JP Square Enix Director(s) Glen Schofield Michael Condrey Writer(s) John MacInnes Eric Hirshberg Mark Boal Composer(s) Harry Gregson-Williams2 audiomachine (Paul Dinletir, Kevin Rix)3 Series Call of Duty Engine In-house engine Platform(s) Microsoft Windows PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Xbox One Xbox 360 Release date(s) November 4, 2014b Genre(s) First-person shooter Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer Distribution Optical disc, download Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is a military science fiction war thriller first-person shooter video game published by Activision. Released on November 4, 2014, Sledgehammer Games developed the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game, while High Moon Studios developed the versions released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Development began in late 2011, shortly after the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Sledgehammer employed veteran actors Troy Baker and Kevin Spacey in lead roles. The game's futuristic single-player story follows Jack Mitchell of the United States Marine Corps and his interaction with Atlas, a private military corporation that sells its services to the highest bidder. Contents Gameplay Campaign Multiplayer Exo Survival Exo Zombies Plot Single-player campaign Exo Zombies Development Marketing and release Reveal Downloadable content Reception References External links GameplayEdit Advanced Warfare, like the other Call of Duty titles, is presented in a first-person shooter perspective. The game features several changes; unlike other installments, Advanced Warfare does not use a traditional heads-up display; instead, all information is relayed to the player via holographic projections from the weapon equipped. The general gunplay remains unchanged, apart from new mechanics, such as Exo movements. Depending on their performance, after each mission the player is given a certain amount of upgrade points which can be used to upgrade the exo suit, or weapons. The player can switch between different types of grenades. The game is the first in the Call of Duty series that allows the player to choose differing types of conventional weaponry; for example, the game features regular conventional firearms, but the player can choose to use laser or energy directed weaponry, both of which have differing attributes. Campaign The single-player campaign features one sole playable character, Jack Mitchell, as opposed to multiple characters in previous Call of Duty games. It makes use of pre-rendered cinematic cut scenes, similar to Call of Duty: Black Ops II, assisting in the story telling aspect of the campaign. Multiplayer Apart from the Exo movement, Advanced Warfare 's multiplayer retains certain similarities to past Call of Duty titles. The Pick 10 system in Black Ops II returns as Pick 13, allowing players to pick weapons, attachments, perks and score-streaks within a total of 13 allocation points. Score-streaks are also upgradable with different modules, allowing for additional abilities/effects, at an extra score cost. Advanced Warfare introduces weapon variants, which contain various different stats compared to the base weapons. This allows the game to contain over 350 weapons, both variants and base versions. Supply drops allow players to earn new gears through playing the game. The content of each supply drop is randomized, and can range from weapon variants to player customization items, as well as bonus experience points (XPs) time. Players can complete daily challenges to earn supply drops. Exo Survival Exo Survival was first introduced as Advanced Warfare 's cooperative game mode. Considered to be a new version of the Survival Mode from Modern Warfare 3, Exo Survival allows up to four players to engage in a wave-based match against A.I.-controlled enemies. Players can choose from three different classes of Exo, which grant different abilities and score-streaks. Weapons and score-streaks can be upgraded throughout each match. After a certain number of rounds, players are given objectives to perform, such as defending a location, or collecting intel from fallen enemies. Completing the objectives grant players bonus upgrade points; not completing them result in the players being punished, such as having their Exo suits temporarily disabled or activating hostile security turrets. Exo Survival is played on the game's multiplayer maps, with a total of 13 maps divived into four tiers. Each tier can be unlocked by playing the previous tier and survive a specific number of rounds. Exo Zombies Exo Zombies was first teased at the end of the Exo Survival map "Riot", and was officially announced with the Havoc downloadable content (DLC) pack. The game mode is said to be "a brand new take on zombies", featuring zombies utilizing exo suits, giving them more maneuverability. The game mode stars four brand new characters: Oz (John Malkovich), Lilith (Rose McGowan), Decker (Jon Bernthal), and Kahn (Bill Paxton). Exo Zombies plays similarly to the original Zombies game mode that was featured in Treyarch's Call of Duty games since Call of Duty: World at War: up to four players have to survive against endless waves of undead enemies, with an optional story quest, or Easter egg, that can be done at any time during a match. Players earn points by injuring and/or killing zombies, and use them to open doors/clear obstacles, or buy new weapons and perks to strengthen their chance of survival. Players can also acquire exo suits in the game mode, allowing them to utilize new movements. Different types of zombies are present in the game, including Charger zombies that have increased movement speed, and Electro-magnetic zombies (EMZs) that can disable the players' Exo suit in close proximity. The first Exo Zombies map, "Outbreak", was released on January 27, 2015 on Xbox Live, February 26, 2015 on PlayStation Network and March 3, 2015 on Steam, as part of the Havoc DLC map pack. The second map, "Infection", will be released on March 31st, 2015 on Xbox Live, with other platforms to follow, as part of the Ascendance DLC pack. PlotEdit Single-player campaign In 2054, Private Jack Mitchell (Troy Baker) of the United States Marine Corps, along with Private Will Irons (Paul Telfer) and group leader Sergeant Cormack (Russell Richardson), participates in his first battle against North Koreans in Seoul. Will is killed in action, while Mitchell's left arm is severed, forcing him to be discharged from military service. After attending Will's funeral service, Mitchell is offered a position with the Atlas Corporation, the world's most powerful private military contractor, by CEO Jonathan Irons (Kevin Spacey), Will's father. Mitchell is also given an advanced prosthetic arm to replace his lost one. Meanwhile, a terrorist group known as the KVA, led by a technophobic man named Joseph "Hades" Chkheidze (Sharif Ibrahim), begins staging numerous terrorist attacks, with the world turning to Atlas to stop them. Mitchell, along with Gideon (Gideon Emery), Joker (Jeremy Kent Jackson) and other Atlas soldiers rescue the Nigerian prime minister and later capture a KVA technologist in Lagos, Nigeria during a technology summit. However, by 2055, the KVA's attacks have become more sophisticated and Mitchell and his team fail to prevent the KVA from forcing a nuclear reactor meltdown on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The KVA launch similar attacks against nuclear power plants worldwide, irradiating numerous cities, killing thousands of people and putting national governments and militaries in turmoil. Atlas emerges as the dominant military force in the world by aiding civilians affected by the attacks and holding back the KVA's rampage. Four years later in 2059, Mitchell and Gideon search an abandoned downtown Detroit, Michigan to find Dr. Pierre Danois (Erik Passoja), the KVA's second-in-command. After Ilona (Angela Gots), an ex-Spetsnaz Atlas operative, interrogates the doctor, the team tracks Hades to Santorini in Greece, where KVA leaders are holding a conference. Mitchell corners Hades and mortally wounds him. With his last breath, Hades utters "Irons knows," and gives Mitchell a data chip. Ilona analyzes the chip, only to find out that Irons killed the technologist they captured in Nigeria after Irons learned of the KVA global attack, proving that he deliberately allowed the attacks to occur to improve Atlas' reputation. Irons attempts to have Mitchell and Ilona arrested, but they escape Atlas' headquarters in the rebuilt Baghdad (called New Baghdad), guided by a mysterious soldier, while Gideon stays by Irons' side for further investigation. The mysterious soldier reveals himself to be Mitchell's old squad leader, Cormack, who is now a member of the Sentinel Task Force, an international effort initially created to investigate the KVA power plant attacks, but now repurposed to prevent Atlas' rise to power. In 2060, Mitchell, now a Sentinel, joins Cormack, Ilona, and Knox (Khary Payton) as they infiltrate Irons' private residence in Bangkok. The team discovers that Dr. Danois (now working under the alias Bellamy) is collaborating with Irons on "Manticore", a bio-weapon. They set up a tracker on a plane carrying the bio-weapon bound for Argentina. Sentinel later intercepts the plane, which crashes in Antarctica. Gideon appears and helps the Sentinels defeat the Atlas soldiers. The team successfully retrieves the WMD and are able to retrieve a sample. After analyzing the sample, they discover that Manticore is a weapon designed to attack the DNA of specific individuals, meaning Irons can use the weapon without risking harm to his own troops. The Sentinels, now joined by Gideon, infiltrate and destroy an Atlas bio-weapons laboratory in Bulgaria, eliminating many of the Manticore samples. With his plot revealed, Irons releases his ultimatum to remove all politicians, whom he thinks are the problem of the world, at the United Nations General Assembly and declares war on the world. The Sentinels discover that Irons is planning a preemptive strike on the United States and try to stop an Atlas attack on the country in San Francisco, California. Atlas destroys the Golden Gate Bridge, trapping the U.S. 3rd fleet in the Bay Area, and attempt to destroy the fleet in a single strike. The Sentinels use a railgun aboard an aircraft carrier to destroy the attacking Atlas ships. With the ultimatum and the attack on U.S. soil, the United States, along with the rest of the world, declares war against Atlas and Irons retreats to his headquarters in New Baghdad. Seven months later, the Sentinels and the United States Army attack New Baghdad to bring Irons to justice. However, Atlas releases Manticore, killing Knox and most of the attacking troops. Mitchell, Ilona, and Gideon, whose DNA are recognized by Manticore as they are former Atlas soldiers, are spared, as well as Cormack, who was outside the blast radius. The four are brought to an Atlas prison camp, which also runs Manticore experiments on its inmates. The Sentinels escape, but Irons kills Cormack and severely damages Mitchell's prosthetic arm. As they escape the facility, they discover that Irons already has enough Manticore to attack every military base in the world and will be launching an ICBM loaded with the bio-weapon shortly. Mitchell and Gideon launch a lone assault on the Atlas HQ while using heavily armored battlesuits and manage to destroy the ICBM. They find Irons as the other Sentinels prepare to bombard the building. Irons disables their exoskeletons, forcing Mitchell to release the exoskeleton to chase Irons. Mitchell tackles Irons off the building, but he hangs on to Mitchell's prosthetic arm. Mitchell severs his prosthetic, sending Irons falling to his death. As Gideon arrives to carry him out of the building, Mitchell notes that Irons' death was only the beginning and the war against Atlas is far from over. Exo Zombies NOTE: the story of Exo Zombies is updated as each new map is released; certain details are subject to change. Following a failed attempt to contain a riot at a prison, the Atlas Corporation releases the Manticore bioweapon in order to end the fight peacefully. However, instead of killing the enemy forces, the Manticore bomb reanimates them as zombies. Four Atlas soldiers, who were sent in to contain the riot, is forced to fight their way out of the prison using limited weaponry. One soldier manages to escape with the help of Atlas captain Gideon, but while taking off on a Warbird helicopter, Gideon is pulled out by a zombie. Three platoons are sent in to cage the undead forces, but only one survive, while the others are brought back to an Atlas research facility for further studies. The research is carried out in secret, without the knowledge of the employees of said facility, in a hidden area known as Sub-Level 6. On one night, the captured zombies break out of their containment, and begin to overrun the facility, infecting Atlas personnel in the process. Amidst the chaos, four Atlas employees - Oz the janitor, Lilith the IT specialist, Decker the security guard, and Kahn the executive - attempt to evacuate, but their rescue Warbird is attacked by zombies and crash-lands onto the facility. Finding an encrypted communication box at the crash site, the four attempt to call in another Warbird for rescue, by using their security ID badges, which have to be upgraded to have maximum clearance level. While this is happening, the Atlas Corporation also sends in several orbital care packages, suggesting that someone is watching them from afar. The four survivors succeed in calling in a second Warbird, but then it is shot down by an Atlas care package, leaving them stranded once again. Eventually, the facility is overrun, and an unknown man and woman are heard talking about sending in a recon team to retrieve the specimens, as well as initiating "Phase Two". DevelopmentEdit Advanced Warfare is the first Call of Duty title since Call of Duty 2 not to use Infinity Ward's IW engine, with Sledgehammer instead opting for a new engine built internally. Before being switched to become the co-developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Sledgehammer Games was already working on a Call of Duty game called Call of Duty: Fog of War. Fog of War was announced before Modern Warfare 3 and after Black Ops. It was to be set during the events of the Vietnam War. The game was said to be an action-adventure third-person shooter video game. A Call of Duty massively multiplayer online game was also rumored to be in development.6 Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg later stated that Modern Warfare 3 was not the same title as Sledgehammer Games' action-adventure Call of Duty game. When asked if the action-adventure game was also in development, Hirshberg then stated that the Sledgehammer team was fully focused on Modern Warfare 3 and that their own title had been put on hold.7 A new game in the Call of Duty series was announced to be released in November 2014.8 Director Michael Condrey said that the engine has been built from scratch. He stated that although there are lines of the old code left, there is new rendering, animation, physics and audio systems.9 With the new engine, the audio has been made from scratch. According to Don Veca, who worked on Advanced Warfare, the audio in the game is very advanced which gives the game a genuine and great feel. Saying that audio doesn't come last as it did in previous titles, Glen Schofield says "We make sure that audio is just as important as anything else and Don's in there from the start with us.". Another objective that Sledgehammer accomplished with Advanced Warfare were the animations. The facial animating system and set is the same as James Cameron's upcoming Avatar 2, which is a big step and a first for Call of Duty. According to Activision, the new three-year Call of Duty development cycle meant that Advanced Warfare developer Sledgehammer Games was able to create a 'near photorealistic' world unlike any Call of Duty before.10 On June 6, 2014, issue of MCVOnline Magazine, it was confirmed that High Moon Studios, the team behind the Deadpool video game and Transformers games, is working on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Advanced Warfare, while Sledgehammer Games is focusing on the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the title.11 Activision has confirmed that there will not be a release on the Wii U, making Advanced Warfare is the first main Call of Duty game to not see a release on a Nintendo platform since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009).1213 Michael Condrey confirmed in a tweet that Advanced Warfare will feature female soldiers in multiplayer, following suit with the previous game Call of Duty: Ghosts.14 Marketing and releaseEdit Advanced Warfare was released one day earlier to customers who purchased the "Day Zero Edition". This version featured double XP for the first day and two exclusive guns, as well as access to exclusive weapons and an Exo Skeleton suit.41516 Reveal In May 2014, the official Call of Duty website was updated with a scrambled image that was due to be revealed on May 4, 2014. However, the trailer was leaked ahead of schedule on May 1 and then officially released soon after. The trailer revealed actor Kevin Spacey as portraying a character in the game who resents democracy.15 The trailer contained a variety of futuristic technologies, including cloaking aircraft, twin-rotor drones, hover bikes, "spider" tanks, specialized weapons, powered exoskeletons, scan-tron grenades and gloves that allow their wearer to climb up walls.15 On June 9, 2014, E3 was opened with a new gameplay trailer for Advanced Warfare that showcased features such as swarms of drones resembling birds and infrared enemy identifiers. During the presentation, Xbox head Phil Spencer said that downloadable content for Advanced Warfare will be released first on Xbox Live in the same fashion as the previous games in the series. On July 29, 2014, Sledgehammer Games released a trailer showing a more in depth look into the main back story of the campaign side of the game. Within the last five seconds of the trailer a brief view of the multiplayer was shown, the first time multiplayer had been shown. Within it "score streaks" were visible which are returning from Black Ops II. Also shown was the new HUD which usually changes from each title. The trailer also stated that there would be a worldwide full multiplayer reveal on August 11, 2014 during Gamescom 2014.17 On October 30, Taylor Kitsch and Emily Ratajkowski co-starred in the live action trailer in advance of the game's November 4 release directed by Peter Berg who previously worked with Kitsch in the films Battleship and Lone Survivor.1819 Downloadable content A pre-order bonus was announced entitled 'Advanced Arsenal' which consists of a Custom Exoskeleton along with an EM1 Quantum & AK-12G weapon usable in multiplayer.20 An advertisement revealed that the collector's editions will include a bonus multiplayer map, "Atlas Gorge", which is a remake of the map "Pipeline" from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; an Atlas Digital Content Pack, which includes two bonus weapons, a custom character helmet, a player card, five in-game "supply drops" and a single-player upgrade token. Also included is a season pass, granting players access to four post-release map packs. Additionally, all pre-orders would be upgraded to the "Day Zero Edition", which includes 24 hours early access to the game with double XP, additional weapons and in-game items.21 On November 3, 2014, Activision revealed 4 DLCs for Advanced Warfare, namely Havoc, Ascendance, Supremacy, and Reckoning.22 A new co-op mode, Exo Zombies, was announced on November 27, 2014, and was released alongside with the Havoc DLC in January 27, 2015 for the Xbox consoles, February 26, 2015 for the PlayStation consoles,2324 and March 3, 2015 for PC.25 The Ascendance DLC is scheduled to be released on March 31, 2015 for the Xbox consoles and will include 4 new maps, the second Exo Zombies map and a new grappling hook feature playlist.26